


in the fragments of your memories (i’m there)

by thehuntress_88



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Blackouts, Childhood Memories, Dreams, M/M, Minor Injuries, Temporary Amnesia, prompt: teasers 13 and 14, sassy baekhyun is sassy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-11-09 09:49:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11102043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehuntress_88/pseuds/thehuntress_88
Summary: Sehun could be called stupid for trusting a complete stranger a night after they’d just met. then again, a feeling in his gut tells him that that stranger isn’t asstrangeas he thought he was.





	in the fragments of your memories (i’m there)

**Author's Note:**

> hello dear prompter! first of all, teasers 13 and 14 are such wonderful material, so i hope you don’t mind if i took some liberty with writing this prompt (which made me seriously twist some of the some scenes). thank you very much for this, and although it might seem quite rushed (my sincerest apologies!) i hope you’ll enjoy it all the same ☺ (to be honest this has to be a mix of angst, crack, romance, and everything else in between, and for that, again, i seriously apologize)

Oh Sehun is a good dancer. His friends know, his self-proclaimed “rivals” know, and most importantly, he himself knows. Sometimes, he would even dare say (although in his mind) that he knows he is better than good. He knows the sharp angles of his arms, the stretch of taut muscle in his limbs, and the cutting accuracy of his movements. He knows how _precise_ his body looks with every beat, how effortless it must seem for him to control every pose and every stance.

 

 

 

Yes, it is general knowledge that in his high school, his name is synonymous with dance.

However, it isn’t general knowledge that it wasn’t always like this, and in fact, only Sehun knows what exactly sparked his passion in the craft. He likes to keep it to himself for the most part just because he wants to, and also because it seemed too romantic and dramatic of a reason for a person like him to have.

Because once upon a time, when Sehun was a little bit younger, he could’ve sworn he had a dream about a boy dancing in the glow of the moonlight. And that, for him, was nothing short of beautiful.

 

 

 

 

It is here in the university as a dance major that he discovers that perhaps he isn’t really the best at what he does, that to excel he had to be much better than just _better than good_ even though he had seemed more crippled than the average student by the scar at his hip and the occasional dull ache at the base of his skull.

Impulsively, he traces his fingers along the said mark that followed the line of his hipbone at the thought of that memory.

It was an accident that happened in the middle of high school, and it wasn’t exactly worth mentioning if anyone asks him. Though the car he and his family had been riding then looked absolutely wrecked, the only casualties were a concussion and a fracture along his hip for him and a spinal injury for his older brother who’d been in the front seat.

His parents had been worried then that there would be complications beyond what the doctors had told them. Those people in white coats had asked him so many questions about things that he knew and things that he didn’t know, and then proceeded to throw around terms he had never really understood. It had made his parents scared enough to attempt to discourage Sehun from his chosen major of dance thinking that he couldn’t handle the stress on his body. He remembers being stubborn, remembers being desperate enough to repeatedly comfort them with the genuine promises of hard work and a good job that would put his talents to use (which in his situation would naturally be South Korea’s ever-growing idol industry). And so they had allowed him, even though Sehun could still feel the paranoia and leftover worry in their eyes.

That’s what makes his life in the university nothing but constant practice and literal blood and sweat, always putting in that extra effort and that added push – simply put, his life had never been as easy since. It would only be some time until Sehun no longer saw dance as magical, but as a means of surviving, a way to keep his education until he graduated and then as a means to make a living. The image of the boy in the moonlight had then sunk under the surface; to where, Sehun never knew and never bothered to know. This had been the norm for him until the day he decided he was good enough to audition, a turning point that could either raise or crush the hopes of others. It was every student’s dream to be scouted, or even to be just accepted during auditions, and Sehun was no exception.

Practice, however, soon took its toll on him when he first found himself sprawled on the studio’s floor with a throbbing head and without any memory of falling in the first place. He had picked himself up with caution, wary of the pain in his bones when he so much as moved, and then gone home without telling his parents. He knew that they would pull him out of the school if they so much as caught the wisp of a rumor that he had blacked out (predictably and possibly correctly placing the blame on his concussion), and with how far he’d come and how close he was to finishing, that was something he simply couldn’t afford right now.

“You’re overdoing it again.” He whips his head from where he was currently seated against the mirrors of the studio to see a familiar face. “If you keep this up, you might actually make your parents’ predictions come true.”

Sehun chuckles without humor as soon as the blond plops down on the floor right next to him, a part of him amused that they were going along the same train of thought. “I can’t stop until it’s perfect. And besides, it’s been years since the accident, hyung,” he says simply, yet again unconsciously stroking the hem of his shirt that hid the scar beneath.

Of the number of friends he had here, only Baekhyun had known. Why Sehun had told him that and how they even befriended each other, he himself didn’t exactly know. He and Baekhyun (who sits quite unchallenged at the top of the vocal pyramid) were so similar and yet so far apart in terms of whatever unusual hierarchy the university had that more than once, they had both received curious looks from those who took that said hierarchy far too seriously. As a given, Sehun usually struck out on his own while Byun Baekhyun took on the role of the school’s social butterfly. The latter and his band of friends didn’t seem like the type Sehun would be associated with, but somehow the two of them just clicked.

“I know.” Baekhyun replies seriously, lips pursed as if thinking. “Just. If the thought of your parents or me,” he adds with a suddenly playful wink, “losing our heads because of worrying won’t stop you, then at least think about yourself. Who knows what would’ve happened if I didn’t come back for you here?” His light tone barely covers the heaviness that they both knew the other felt in Baekhyun’s words.

Sehun doesn’t reply, humming casually as he turns over in his head the implications of what the older had said. When Baekyun had found him here a few days ago, he’d been out cold for what seemed like a good two hours. It had been too late for him to return home on the grounds of practice, and so he had stayed in the older’s house even as he had felt the guilt over his parents eat at him.

“Sehun.” He shifts his gaze back to the older, conscious that his lack of a reply meant the lack of a promise. “Take care of yourself, will you?”

It takes a beat until Sehun sighs deeply. He can’t give his word that he wouldn’t force himself past his limits again, but Baekhyun is looking at him with hard and yet pleading eyes, as if he doesn’t intend for Sehun to leave without giving him a solid answer.

“I’ll try.”

 

 

 

 

A week afterwards doesn’t see Sehun living up to that promise, instead pressed up against the doors of an old studio, curious and at the same time alarmed. There had been less than five days left until auditions then, and during that time, he’d decided to return to the place that had once been a second home to him. At soon as it was dusk, he had tread down the narrow pathway behind the university gate that eventually led to an old studio surrounded by newer and sleeker buildings. Even then, he imagined that maybe it’s there that he’d be able to practice better and think straight.

That was until he’d almost blacked out. When he had regained his breath and when the pain dulled enough for him to be able to even think about moving, he had left the studio in anger as he brusquely tore off the jacket he’d been wearing then. When he’d returned, he had found the very same jacket folded neatly right beside his bag. Right then and there, he had entertained the possibilities of ghosts, of stalkers, and even of people who merely took pleasure in messing with somebody else’s head. Clearly, there was _something_ strange about that studio. And yet, even with all the warning signs, he had stubbornly come back to investigate.

The more rational part of Sehun only makes an appearance when he’s near the crack of the door, his heart thumping too loudly and his breath shallow. God knows he really shouldn’t be doing this, he thinks as his trembling fingers touch the cold wood. He really shouldn’t be up and about looking for things that maybe didn’t even exist. And yet. . .

He doesn’t go any further as he carefully pushes the door with the gentlest force he could muster.

Sehun feels the wind knocked right out of him as soon as his eyes adjust to the light inside. Somehow it’s like he’s seeing an illusion, or at the very least, a hallucination. It’s definitely no ghost or stalker. Perhaps it wasn’t even human. _No one_ could be as graceful as the figure he sees, the figure who’s now effortlessly catching each and every single emotion in a silent song that Sehun thinks only the two of them could hear. So he watches quietly, never daring to tear his eyes away from the figure who seemed to have complete control of his stage.

It’s only when he feels the seconds tick by that he notices how the figure looks so much like someone he’d known or seen before. Curiously, the harder he tries to remember, the more it escaped his grasp and seemed more like a dream than a memory. Whatever it is, it’s enough to make him inch closer and closer to the figure, until suddenly he’s tipping forward too much when his legs push forward of their accord and he stumbles through the door.

“Shit.” He swears under his breath when he lands rather ungracefully on the floor. Belatedly, he realizes as he looks up that the figure had frozen as well and now looked at him with appraising eyes.

_Tick._

_Tock._

_Tick._

_Tock._

The air is heavy with tension when Sehun doesn’t stop staring at the figure, his eyes running up and down the stranger’s body, just as the stranger seemed to do to him as well.

For the second time in his life, Sehun thinks of something as beautiful. He sees warm tanned skin, beautiful plush lips, and strange dark brown eyes that held something within them that Sehun can’t quite read. If he knew any better, it would seem like the stranger was laughing at him with those eyes. Almost as if he knew an amusing secret that Sehun didn’t. That admittedly makes a not so unpleasant shiver run down his spine. But even then, he remains tense, guarded against this stranger and with good reason to. After all, people like this who appear out of nowhere usually didn’t have the kindest intentions.

“If you stare any harder, I might burn,” the stranger says smoothly and no matter how cautious Sehun thinks he is, it doesn’t fail to send yet another jolt through his body. A husky baritone voice with warm overtones. Sehun would be lying to himself if he said that he didn’t feel a spark of arousal at that.

The thought of that harshly snaps him back to reality. Almost as quickly his mind recoils at fancying a complete stranger. _You barely know him_ , he chides himself as he continues to stare dumbly at the stranger who seemed to be expecting a reply in return.

“I’m sorry, you just – you looked like someone I know.” _Liar_ , Sehun thinks, although he’s surprised by how those words found their way out of his mouth naturally, as if that was exactly what he meant to say.

“Really?” There it is again. That same weird emotion that Sehun could’ve mistaken for a mix of excitement and expectation, things that stranger couldn’t possibly feel over him when they’d just met. Nevertheless, the stranger approaches him with an outreached hand that Sehun gratefully, although hesitantly, takes if just to save face.

“Well, since you’re here,” the stranger begins as he stretches his arms lazily like a cat, “we might as well start.”

Sehun’s brows automatically furrow, sure that he’d heard wrong. There has to be some sort of misunderstanding. He’s not even supposed to be here, eavesdropping on someone he didn’t even know just because of a gut feeling. “I’m sorry, what?”

The stranger gives a low breathy chuckle. “I said, _we might as well start._ ” Ignoring Sehun’s questioning gaze, he moves to the side and drops to the floor with his legs crossed, putting both elbows on his knees while resting his chin on his knuckles. When Sehun doesn’t move, he looks pointedly to the empty space where he had stood. “Go on.” Sehun continues to stare at him, uncomprehending. Half of his instincts are screaming for him to run away, that this stranger could do dangerous things to him, but the other part of him that tried to place this person in his memory tells him to stay and trust whoever this was.

In the split second before he speaks, he decides to make a compromise instead, releasing his words slowly as if to gauge the stranger’s reaction.

“Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t even know you. How would I know that you aren’t some serial killer or anything of the sort?”

Years of having Baekhyun as a friend readies himself for some kind of sassy or witty reply about how _you’d just have to trust me_ or _if I were, you would already be dead_ , so he’s startled when the stranger, for the first time since they’ve met, drops his smile. “Don’t you . . . you really don’t know who I am?”

Oh. Sehun shakes his head. “No. I’m sorry,” he says sincerely, yet surprising himself again when he tastes the bitterness of lies in his words. _What –?_ How could he be lying when he knew he was telling the truth? The man before him has been making him feel the strangest emotions from the second they met, and the push and pull on his memory is starting to frustrate him, if the now sharpening pain at the back of his head is any sign of that.

“That changes things,” he hears the stranger murmur. “In that case . . . I won’t force you to remember. But if it helps, you always called me Kai. And when we were younger, we used to be the best of friends.”

_Kai_. Sehun silently tests the name on his lips. The way his throat constricted around the syllable seemed familiar, as with all the things the stranger – no, not stranger but Kai – made him feel, but still . . .

The frustration Sehun feels at not knowing only doubles when he sees Kai’s eagerly awaiting face, subtle as it seemed. When we were younger. Best of friends. Sehun could easily have accused him as a liar when he tries again to search for this person’s face in his memories and finds nothing. Yet there’s something straightforward about Kai’s tone that marks his words as true. He groans internally. Why did he feel so annoyed at not knowing this person? _Why_ doesn’t he know? The questions he has in his head are multiplying at a dangerous rate, and a nagging feeling tells him that the answers would be difficult, if not impossible, to find.

“I’m sorry, I can’t. . .” The pain is starting to sear now, his breaths growing quicker and shallower. He chooses to ignore it for the meantime, instead letting his gaze fall to the ground knowing he would meet Kai’s own disappointed gaze if he chose to look straight into his eyes. “I can’t remember you.”

At that moment before he could warn the other, the pounding in his head explodes with full force. His vision turns black, and he falls.

 

 

 

 

Sehun dreams of mirrors. When his vision clears, he sees the same studio around him except this time, it looked much cleaner, newer. He’s there, by himself in his nine year old body as he watches the last kid from the class – Soojung, he remembers – smile him a goodbye and walk away with her hand in her father’s. It’s lonely here, but Sehun doesn’t mind. For some reason, he feels excitement thrumming in his veins, himself buzzing with latent energy as if he was waiting for someone’s arrival.

“Hey!” It comes in the form of a boy of his age, a boy who had familiar features and who was now waving to him with such force that it looks like his arm would fall off if he tried any harder. On instinct, he waves back.

“Hey.” He smiles at the newcomer who runs excitedly to him. “You’re here early,” he says happily even as he makes way for the boy to stay beside him.

“Of course I am,” the boy says matter-of-factly, and Sehun doesn’t know why but they both end up laughing at that. It doesn’t really matter though, not when the warmth that begins to creep on him from just being with this boy makes him feel comfortable and contented. “Show me what you’ve learned,” the boy says as he drops down to the floor, looking expectantly at Sehun.

“All right, but only if you show me what you’ve learned,” Sehun replies, legs poised and arms ready to move.

“Deal.”

 

 

 

 

“For fuck’s sake Sehun, I told you to take care of yourself.” He blearily opens his eyes to see Baekhyun’s worried face. There are shadows under his eyes and slight wrinkles on his forehead that Sehun promptly feels guilty for being the cause of. He swears he’d make up for that in the future. Now, however, all he focuses on is the continued pounding in his head.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” He tries to sit up, noting that the sheets aren’t his and that the room didn’t even look like the one he usually stayed in when Baekhyun took him home, but it’s his actions that makes him tilt his head questioningly. Huh. That was weird. Usually his body would also be aching all over to the point where he’d barely be able to move, but as he rests his weight on his palms to push himself up, he feels nothing out of the ordinary aside from the feeling that seemed like his head was spinning.

“Where – “

“Don’t even try to sit up.” Baekhyun still pushes him back to the bed firmly but not enough to hurt. “We’re in Chanyeol’s place. My brother had just come back home which is why Yeol volunteered to have you here. Besides, it was a lot closer to the university.” The older’s tone is clipped and stiff, leaving no room for a proper thank you on Sehun’s side.

“Oh.” Sehun’s eyes widen when he realizes that he had spoken out loud. The way Baekhyun’s tight expression just barely erupts into rage makes him think he shouldn’t have.

“Goddamn right, oh! I’ve already said this _so many fucking times_ , but do you imagine what would’ve happened if I didn’t find you?” It’s clear in Baekhyun’s tone that the question needs no answer. Instead, it forces Sehun to feel ashamed of himself even though he’s sure that that wasn’t the older meant for him.

“Sorry,” Sehun mumbles, eyes darting to everything except Baekhyun in apology tinged with embarrassment. The heaviness hangs in the air around them awkwardly. While he knows it’s difficult for Baekhyun to keep being mad at him, he knows saying anything right now would get them nowhere. It takes a while, but the older does break the silence when he groans loudly, gesturing at Sehun to scoot over so that he’d have some space.

“I’m not gonna keep saving you forever. I mean, I’ll try but . . . you do know what I’m saying, don’t you?” He does, he really does. With Baekhyun himself almost graduating, numerous companies asking for his talents, and with a boyfriend to add, it _did_ seem like a wonder that he’d found time to take care of Sehun the way he had.

“Yeah. I do.” It’s not bitter, just accepting of the sting of reality. His reply makes Baekhyun give him a thankful and yet somber smile as he stands to leave the room.

“Get some sleep, kid. You’ve got some explaining to do to your parents tomorrow.” Sehun raises his eyebrows in acknowledgement, already dreading his parents’ questions, which now really just fell a little bit short of accusations. But there’s something else bothering him, something, he realizes, that went along the lines of the fact that he never told Baekhyun where exactly he had been recently going just to practice.

“Hey hyung.”

“Yeah?”

“How’d you find me?”

Baekhyun’s eyebrows scrunch up. “What do you mean _how’d I find you_?”

“I mean,” Sehun pauses as he tries to word his sentence right. “ _Where_ did you find me?”

“In the university, of course. Although to be honest,” Baekhyun cocks his head to the side, “I’m surprised you weren’t in your usual room.”

Well damn. That makes his heart race more than if Baekhyun had told him that he had found the younger in the old studio. It now meant either of two theories: first, the fantastical one where Sehun had dreamed of the whole exchange, that there, in his somehow messed up mental state, he had created a figure named Kai. Or, there was the more acceptable and yet more impossible one where Kai was a real person, a person who had certainly brought him to the school after he had lost consciousness and had also been wiped from his memory.

Whichever was true, Sehun was determined to find out for himself.

 

 

 

 

It’s with steady steps that he returns to the studio at around the same time he had last come. And even before he enters, he already looks for any signs that could mean Kai was already here, watching him from some dark corner of the studio. The thought of that, he finds, doesn’t really scare him any more than it should have. After all, he _was_ here to see that boy again.

It’s when he searches everywhere and finds no trace of Kai that he feels unusually relieved and yet disappointed, but somehow he’s not surprised. That could mean his head truly was royally screwed up, or that whoever that person was just messed around with him (and probably got a damn good laugh out of that to add). Either way, it still was a loss for him.

_At least it was worth a shot._

However, in the fog of his disappointment, a desperate thought tickles him at the back of his mind. Perhaps . . . perhaps, if he had indeed just dreamt him up, then maybe Kai would appear if he had just repeated the events of when they’d first met. It was silly to think so, but at this point, all Sehun really wants are answers to his questions.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he mutters, limbs falling back to a familiar position he’d done countless times over. Still, he counts to four under his breath.

_One. Two. Three. Four._ And then he dances.

At first there’s no hesitation in his steps. All his actions are executed perfectly, clean-cut and sharp. It’s easy; there’s almost no effort from him at all. Although the original purpose of his dance was to hope to draw out Kai, it soon becomes personal when he sees the muted elegance of his own body. Here, he moves like water in a river, powerful yet restrained.

But it’s somewhere along the lines of the next few beats of the song in his head that he begins to falter. It’s when the growing pang on his neck makes him scared of stumbling that he becomes far too conscious of his movements that simply weren’t _perfect_. And while he’s known for some time that ironically, this is what makes his movements transition from flawless to staggering, he doesn’t resist the urge to pick out every single thing he sees wrong. An arm here: a faulty angle. A kick there: too slow. A –

If he hadn’t been quick enough to force his hands out after realizing that the ground had started speeding towards him, he’s sure he’d be suffering yet another set of injuries much worse than the angry red of his palms. That however, is the least of his concerns. Shakily, he pulls himself together and leans against the mirrors. He’s worse off than he thought, his mistakes having numbered far more than they usually did in such a short period of time. At this rate, he wouldn’t be able to dance decently or even barely pass. Not passing the auditions meant. . .

It was a future he didn’t even want to think about.

“Well, fuck.” He says to nobody but himself, in resignation more than anything else. _This_ was the reason why he’d always stayed later in the practice rooms ever since he’d made the choice to audition. _This_ was why he’d always put too much effort: in trying to perfect the imperfect, what was already perfect in turn becomes imperfect.

Sehun laughs humorlessly at his thoughts. Maybe in another life, he would’ve made a great writer instead.

He watches as his breath come out in small puffs that soon disappear as if they were never there.

Puff. Puff. Puff.

He feels tired. So incredibly tired from years of giving more than his best, only for everything to culminate into a literal crash just because of consequences from a decision he didn’t even make. Giving up seems much easier now when he simply accepted it than when he had fought so hard. He closes his eyes. Was that not the whole point of giving up, of losing? And so he does just that, resting his head against the mirrors and submitting to the ghosts of surrender.

It almost seems like an eternity until he hears a voice that jolts him to awareness. “Are you going to get up or . . . ?” He takes his time opening his eyes. Sure enough, Kai was there, looking at him with an unreadable expression in his gaze.

So he did appear. That’s enough to send his heart fluttering fleetingly, from shock or happiness from relief, he isn’t sure of. Then again, he isn’t sure of many things when it came to Kai. Though it clearly gives the score to “imaginary figure”, Sehun still hesitates to come to that conclusion, partly because he refuses to believe that he was indeed losing his mind.

“How long have you been there?”

“A while.”

Sehun snorts at that. “Let me guess – you’ve seen all that.” To anyone else, it might’ve been humiliating to be seen like this, but Sehun doesn’t find it in himself to care anymore. And it’s precisely that that drives away any apprehension he has of Kai now.

“I did.” Kai walks toward him slowly, surely. Just like he had done before, he reaches out a hand for Sehun to grab onto. This was the other part of why the latter couldn’t simply accept Kai as imaginary: his grasp was warm and solid. “And I can tell you, that’s not the Sehun I know.”

Sehun almost rolls his eyes, yet he takes the offered hand anyway. Of course, there would be that we knew each other story that Kai had insisted on when they’d last met (which, he reminds himself, had also been their _first_ meeting). But if anything, that makes him favor the theory that Kai was an imaginary being. How else could he be a real person who’d suddenly been removed from his memory?

“And who is the Sehun you know?” he asks, words accidentally tumbling out as biting even though he genuinely means it. Kai doesn’t seem to notice though, instead smiling gently at him before carefully pushing on his shoulders so that he’s facing the mirrors. Sehun almost flinches at his touch – only choosing against it just as his consciousness decides to tip towards the thinking that Kai was imaginary. If that was the case, then while every touch seemed real right now, it wouldn’t be when he was sane again. Simply put, he wouldn’t be able to hurt him for real.

“Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“You wanted to know who that Sehun was. So close your eyes.” That instantly tilts his decision back towards Kai being real although this time, he was someone whose intents weren’t for the best. No matter how friendly and how transparent he’d seemed, there still was that off chance that he was a very good actor who could be playing tricks on Sehun’s mind just to get something (whatever that was) out of Sehun. It’s what makes him say his next words even though he immediately feels sorry when he searches Kai’s eyes and sees nothing but honest anticipation (and, he thinks, what looked like a glimmer of hope).

“Just so you know, I have friends who would kill if they found out I was missing.”

Though the joke was clearly a threat albeit a weak one in disguise, Kai doesn’t seem to be offended, even laughing briefly. “Noted.”

And it’s with that small reassurance that Sehun obeys. As soon as he shuts his eyes, the sensation of everything else seemed to magnify to make up for the loss. Not only can he hear his slightly erratic breathing, but he could also feel a warm burst of air on his nape that could only come from Kai. His muscles tense.

“That’s good.” The warmth soon disappears before Sehun hears footsteps circle him. “Now, what do you feel?”

A simple question, and although he wasn’t exactly sure of the answer, he knew it was troublesome from the way his hands start clenching tightly until it started to hurt. How exactly could he quantify whatever mess of emotions he had felt not minutes ago? There’s too much to begin with and yet he has nothing to say, everything swirling in his mind like a wind that he can’t catch. And then again, why did he have to tell Kai, who not a night ago hadn’t even existed for him?

_You wanted to know who that Sehun was._

It takes him time, he could feel it from the way Kai’s footsteps started to get quicker – more agitated, but he yields, starting from the one he thinks he feels the most.

When he breathes in deeply, he finds anger at himself for not being able to push himself further than he already has. Frustration at blacking out even during times when he wasn’t even tired. Desperation at wanting to pass auditions. Sadness at his parents finding out. Fear that he’d never live up to the dreams he had for himself. It’s the last emotion that makes Sehun truly feel the weight of everything he had gone through cave in on him in a single moment. Now that he’d put it into thought, he’s been through _so much_ , much more than he ever thought he could handle.

It takes another stretch of a second. Then two. And then three.

“Anger,” he finally says, and he knows it’s not his imagination when he hears Kai’s quiet sigh of what seemed to be relief that he hadn’t put up his mental barriers.

“Alright. Why?”

He lets out a shaky breath. “Because no matter how hard I push, it would never be enough.”

“And then?”

“Frustration.”

“Why?” It’s a subtle change that Sehun couldn’t hear, but Kai’s voice becomes more concerned than curious now, more sad than probing.

“Because of that damn headache that makes me blackout every time.” His hands clench into fists as he recalls how much of a _fucking_ hindrance it was to all the things he’d ever aspired to achieve. And before he knows it, whatever walls he’d put up to keep his emotions in check shatters like a broken dam at his own hands. Whatever resentment he’d felt for his condition suddenly flares into a destructive fire, clouding his mind even as it compels him to move.

_He wants to push it away, to break it utterly until it was dust and no longer existed. He always hated that numbness he felt when the thought of yielding seemed too much to take, and so to crush it would mean that he’d finally be able to feel what it’s like to live again._

_And once he sees it gone, all he’d have to do is to leap to finally claim what hardship and struggle justified as rightfully his, for he had always looked forward to the future, if only to reassure himself that what was coming was brighter than the past._

In the intricate poetry of his emotions, he’s aware that he’s moving, reacting to every feeling he forced himself to face as if it were a physical thing. He was pushing and pulling, reaching and shying away with movements only years of knowledge of dance could sustain.

Desperation.

Sadness.

Fear.

All carried to the outskirts of his consciousness and ground until he’s sure that they wouldn’t be able to rise again. And it felt exhilarating.

He doesn’t dare open his eyes until he’s finished, finding himself kneeling on the ground with sweat on his brow and yet with the sense that he’d just let go of everything that had weighed down on him. When he does blink them open, the first thing he sees is Kai’s impressed and yet oddly fond glance.

“You should’ve seen yourself. You always danced best when you let out what you felt.” If possible, his breaths are even quicker from Kai’s murmured and yet obvious praise. The corner of his lips turn up in a smile.

There’s barely even time for him to thank Kai or even wonder at what he meant with his last words when he registers the pain that strikes him out of nowhere, forcing his body to go limp as loses control over himself. All he feels is darkness clouding his eyes, and for the second time that they’ve met, he slips into the unknown.

 

 

 

 

This time, Sehun dreams of lights. They’re bright at first, _too bright_ , but his eyes adjust well enough to see the brightest of them outline a figure with outstretched arms in a form frozen by time. His breath catches when the figure thaws, suddenly beginning to sway, and it pulled from him an impossible elegance as the seconds bled into minutes. Sehun stays entranced. He’s seen this boy already, he _knows_ it. There’s a name bubbling to his lips, but he finds that he doesn’t want to say it out loud. Not just yet. Why exactly, he doesn’t know, but he feels it has something to with the gut instinct that he’d break the spell he was in if he so much as spoke.

When the boy finishes, he turns around and smiles at Sehun with the brilliance of the sun.

“What are you waiting for? Come on!” Almost in a trance, Sehun surges forward to take his place by the boy’s side.

“How was it?” The boy looks at him expectantly, and though Sehun somehow knows that it would be safe to say that they were equals in age, the hope etched on his face makes him look younger than he is.

“You were perfect.”

 

 

 

 

He wakes again to the same room he had been brought to after first meeting Kai. He has no idea how he gets there, but there’s something in the dream-like element of the previous day that makes him accept it without much question. The bed creaks as he turns on his side, the back of his mind once again noting the fact that his body felt no pain. This time though, the cutting soreness he usually had to bear when he woke from a black out turned into a dull buzz instead. That makes him smile to himself. Maybe he does have a shot at auditions after all. And speaking of auditions . . .

He closes his eyes as he remembers how free he had felt that night, how good it had finally felt to release every single burden that he’d had through a form he knew best. He never really saw what he looked like, but he knew from Kai’s eyes that he’d looked as fluid and imposing as he himself had felt. If that was how he’d perform then, yes, he thinks he could be ready.

_Kai._

And then there was him. All this time, Sehun’s compasses had seemed to unanimously point to the fact that Kai is just a figment of his imagination, or a memory of a dream. For one, he’d never seen Kai anywhere else outside the studio. And while he thinks that he couldn’t have been that desperate enough to will a figure like Kai into existence just to pull him out of a spiral downwards, he also thinks that a real person couldn’t possibly be that selfless, even on the basis of old childhood friendships.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty. At least this time you actually _made_ it to the door before passing out.” That reminds him: he most definitely owes an apology to the tall, lanky male who was currently leaning against the doorway. Sehun slowly pulls himself up to acknowledge the said male.

“About that, I’m sorry. I guess I got too carried away in practice.” He doesn’t know what Chanyeol’s talking about, but he couldn’t exactly reveal that without making any mention of Kai or even the series of strange events in the practice room that always seemed to end with him losing consciousness.

“S’ok. Just don’t let that years-old concussion of yours get in the way of your auditions.” Sehun shoots him an astounded look. How did he –?

“Baekhyun told me. Don’t get mad at him, he was freaking out before we even reached the gate.” That makes his eyebrows rise in a grudgingly pleasant surprise. Goodness. He really does need to make it up to Baekhyun.

“I’m not,” he says with a small smile that Chanyeol easily returns with one of his own grins.

“The audition’s in two days, right? A lot can happen in that time.” Chanyeol pauses. “Take care of yourself, yeah?”

Sehun stops paying attention as soon as he hears how fast auditions are coming. Two days. His smile crumbles bit by bit, setting instead for a wistful line. Though he still feels as if he isn’t absolutely sure what exactly Kai’s place was in his life, he has the sinking feeling that two days is all the time they have left.

 

 

 

 

It’s only the night before the auditions does he gather the courage to ask what’s been floating around in his mind ever since he first met Kai. It’s already on the tip of his tongue, burning with wild curiosity when he pushes away the door to the practice room. As soon as it opens, barely creaking even from years of use, his steps falter, and it takes him a while before he remembers the need for air.

He sucks a sharp breath.

In an arm, Kai holds a jacket in what seems to be reverence. He runs his fingers through it carefully, as if he was trying to memorize every bump and crease in the soft fabric and Sehun involuntarily gulps, almost imagining that he was the one being touched. And then Kai smiles a sinful smirk. From there it becomes a story told by glistening copper skin and dark smoldering eyes through graceful limbs, about wanting and being wanted in return. Sehun could only stare as Kai caresses the jacket with lust in his gaze, the latter looping a sleeve smoothly around his own neck as he continued to sway with a barely restrained passion in every touch.

For a moment, Sehun wonders what it would feel like if he’d been in the place of the jacket. Wonders what addictive heat he’d see in Kai’s eyes, what sensuous touch he’d feel against his skin. At the very least, he wonders for a second what softness he’d feel from those lips against his. As if just by the power of that thought, he parts his lips when he sees Kai bite down harshly on his own, as if he was pained by his own want. _Oh fuck_. He almost gasps a moan. The low heat he had once felt again slowly crawls back, pooling at the bottom of his stomach and twisting itself until he’s sure he’s felt all its edges.

_But what if he isn’t real?_

Sehun almost lurches. That alone was enough for him to want to suppress any kind of desire he might’ve had, though he feels a prickling heaviness in his heart at the thought. It takes him a deep breath and a pregnant exhale to dispel any budding emotion that he thinks he feels, but even with that, a small, snide voice in his head tells him that something’s still there, something he won’t ever be able to erase. What that is, he isn’t sure he wants to know.

“How long have you been there?” Even in the chaos of his thoughts, Sehun still manages to hear the smile in Kai’s voice at that now inside joke. He pulls himself away from the doorway, footsteps a dull thud on the vinyl floor as he makes his way to the slightly panting boy.

“A while.” He can hear the smile there too, feels it working its way to his lips.

Kai doesn’t reply immediately, instead letting the jacket fall from his fingers until it crumpled to the ground. He stares silently.

“You’ve got questions,” he finally says, the knowing smirk back on his face. Sehun opens his mouth to ask how he could possibly know that, when he realizes that perhaps there really was some truth to when Kai had claimed he’d known Sehun from their childhood. That makes the question in his head seem even more urgent, almost begging to be released. So with this barely-there permission, and without any more heed as to how stupid it had sounded in his head, he finally asks.

“Are you real?” He doesn’t see Kai’s face when the latter turns his head away, almost as soon as Sehun released the words.

“What do you think?”

It barely clears anything up, but Sehun isn’t leaving until he has a real answer.

“I think you aren’t, but I want to. It’s just . . . I can’t really say that when I don’t have memories of you,” he says honestly, deliberately opening a path for the conversation to lead to why it was both possible and impossible for Kai to exist, almost a paradox of sorts. Kai, however, seemed to close it, almost immediately and deliberately as well when he simply tells Sehun, “If you want to think I’m real, then I am.”

It’s almost neutral, toneless even, but Sehun could still hear the sadness laced in Kai’s voice, and it makes his heart twinge as if he was the one being pained. He knows he doesn’t have much to start with to form a conclusion, but it’s with a sort of final conviction that he steps forward with resolve clear in his eyes. “Then you’re real.”

It’s the quiet radiance of Kai’s smile that makes him think of sunny days, sleepless nights, and secret meetings – with Kai somehow painted into all of them. It makes him think of pictures that seemed to belong in his head and yet didn’t, flitting around and trying to find a place to stay yet finding none. It’s the same thing that makes him lean forward and press his lips to Kai’s, swiftly but gently. Maybe it was the remains of whatever he’d felt for the boy earlier as he danced, maybe it was something older, that though unknown, had enough sway over him to make him do as he did. He doesn’t know, but it doesn’t stop him from inching just a little bit closer, hands almost ghosting over Kai’s hips but ultimately letting them fall to his side instead.

He pulls away as soon as their lips had touched for more than a fraction of a second, glimpsing the dumbfounded light in Kai’s eyes as he shuffles away. Almost in slow motion, he sees Kai attempting to work out the muscles in his throat for him to speak. He doesn’t want to face the sting of rejection, of why’s and how’s, so Sehun tries to beats him to it before he could say a word.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have –“

The familiar, electric pain in his head that had usually kept itself in check now suddenly starts to reappear before Sehun could apologize for the kiss, though he’s not quite sure if he’s even sorry at all. It makes him stumble, feet tripping over one another, until he’s caught by steady arms. The way Kai’s face changed from startled to worried just as quickly as lightning almost makes him laugh.

_Why does this always happen when I’m around you?_

Sehun can feel himself slipping slowly. He can only hope that he’d be fine come tomorrow, and even then, that seemed like a longshot. Still, he tries his best to stay awake, even though he knows going against the pull would be futile.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be alright,” he says when he sees Kai’s lips molding to words he couldn’t hear anymore. He doesn’t know it yet, but it’s for the last time in his life when he loses himself in the dark.

 

 

 

 

Sehun doesn’t really dream tonight. Not really, when it seemed more as if he was watching his memories play like a film he had forgotten he’d already seen. At least, he thinks they’re memories. They feel as if they’re his own, but there are places he doesn’t recall seeing, events that he doesn’t even know. And everywhere, he finds that there are always bits and pieces of Kai, every shard of memory holding an emotion that he never thought he’d feel about the boy.

He watches on with wonder.

It’s much later when he comes across a memory that kept repeating itself like a broken record until he reached it. He isn’t surprised about where he finds himself. There was him, again, in that very studio where everything for him began. And there too, was that very same boy he kept dreaming about.

“Do you have to leave?” he hears himself ask with a choked sob, the tear tracks on his face barely visible, but still there.

The boy in his dreams nods slowly, almost heavily. “I have to. They’re probably looking for me already,” he replies. “But,” the boy says as a hopeful twinkle shines in his eyes, “we won’t forget each other, right?”

Sehun sees his younger self nod fervently. “We won’t!” Younger Sehun smiles happily, but before a second passes, his face suddenly falls. “But what if . . . what if we have new friends? We might forget each other.” A sniffle, and then a hiccup. “I might forget that you were real,” the younger Sehun says as he pouts, trying to blink away the fresh tears that were forming in his eyes.

Sehun almost stills completely. He _knows_ where this is going, and that only makes him watch eagerly, jaw set and eyes trained on the two. _Of course_. How couldn’t he have seen the same features, now in an older, more mature face?

“No, you won’t. Just keep thinking that I’m real, because if you want to think I’m real, then I am.”

It’s almost as if time in his dreams speeds up when he hears the screech of tires and the metallic crash in the distance, and he only knew what that could mean. An icy road. A tree out of nowhere. His brother carried on a stretcher delicately, as if he was a fragile doll that could break at any moment. Himself in a white room, being stitched on his hip. And then the questions. He remembers being able to answer many of them, but as soon as he said he didn’t know, the people around him had worried. They’d brought in his parents, and it was them who had asked him more questions about things he didn’t know, until it narrowed down to a _person_ he didn’t know. That was what had made them uneasy, although they’d sighed in relief when they said, “At least it wasn’t us.”

_Stupid, stupid, stupid_. The realization dawns on him when he finally pieces together the links that he’d never thought belonged there, but did and fit into a story that almost seemed impossible.

Tomorrow when he wakes, he thinks he knows who he’ll dance for.

 

 

 

 

Jongin enters the old studio on a whim. The floors are starting to crack now, and the mirrors have already blurred with dust that came from years of negligence, but he doesn’t mind as he sits down against the glass walls and thinks. When the news that Oh Sehun, one of the most talented dancers of a prestigious university, had passed auditions, it had spread like wildfire and he couldn’t help but smile to himself. After all, he _did_ have a hand in helping out his childhood friend.

_Childhood friend who apparently had no idea who he was._

It didn’t take long for Jongin to connect the dots after the first night in the studio. Of course, he himself loved dance to want to do it his whole life, and the only way that could happen for a person like him was to be scouted or to audition. He had chosen the former, eager as he had been, and while it took several, he was able to finally get into one a renowned agency. From there, it there had been nothing but a one way road upwards, moving by himself back to a city he used to have memorized in his head just so that he’d be able to catch his own ambitions. He was barely a month in when he’d started to become well known within the company, celebrated for his passion and emotion, and while he’d appreciated this reward of his hard work, he’d also been overwhelmed by the shower of praise from left to right.

It made him return to the studio that first defined his talent in the art, and it was there that he continued to practice when he wasn’t required to attend the official trainings in the agency’s building. It was also there, that fateful evening, where he’d first seen evidence of someone other than himself using the studio as a training ground. It was out of sheer politeness that he’d picked up the jacket that had been strewn on the floor, folding it as best as he could and then placing it beside a bag that he’d assumed to belong to the same person, and it was but natural for him to look for the owner, being curious to the point where he’d even gone further than a few meters away to look for whoever that person was. When he’d returned, both the jacket and bag had gone, presumably with their owner as well. That had prompted Jongin to wonder if that was a mere trick on his eyes, but he’d shrugged it off and began his routine as he usually did. It was when someone had burst through the door in the middle of a twirl the next night did he truly believe he was seeing an impossible trick . . . or perhaps it wasn’t as impossible as he’d thought. Both Sehun and he _did_ have a strong attachment to this place, and it wasn’t surprising if one – or both – of them would find themselves here again.

Maybe he’d been too hopeful that Sehun would remember him, too expectant that everything would fall back into the easy friendship they used to have before he was forced to leave because of his father’s job. Jongin laughs almost scathingly as he remembers how eager, how _delighted_ his family had been, and how sickeningly cliché it was that he’d lose his childhood friend in the story just like a typical, overused plot from a drama.

And then Sehun had collapsed right before his eyes just as the former had stubbornly declared that he didn’t know Jongin. It was a stroke of luck that he’d glimpsed Sehun’s ID, that he’d been able to sneak them inside the nearby university when it was clear that Sehun wasn’t going to wake anytime soon. If Jongin was right and time hadn’t distorted his memory, Sehun’s own house would be too far and too dangerous to travel to at this time.

That was when he’d heard voices coming down the room he’d decided to drag the both of them into, and as soon as he’d heard the frantic calls of _Sehun has to be here somewhere, he has to be alright_ he’d decided that Sehun would be in good hands after all and retreated, although that didn’t really soothe his fears as soon as he heard the voice say that _He’d been in an accident a few years back – look I can’t really explain – he’d had a concussion and it’s because of that and he’s pushing himself too much – get his other arm, I got this side._

He was no expert, but he’d watched enough movies to know that there was the scary possibility that Sehun had lost all his memories about _him_. And as he watched the two males – a tall gangly one and a shorter blond one – scold Sehun with obvious annoyance mixed with fondness even though the latter was unconscious, he couldn’t help but feel the confirmation wrap concretely around his conclusions. The realization had crushed him, but it didn’t stop him from discreetly following the two who had now started to enter a small house within walking range of the university. That had made him sigh in relief – at least if his hunches had been wrong, then he’d know where to look.

Jongin’s heart beats slightly faster than it should when he remembers how Sehun had kissed him, giving him a small inkling of hope that even if Sehun had no clue as to what their past was, at least he’d considered Jongin enough to want him in his future. That’s what made him overjoyed when he heard Sehun had passed auditions – not that Jongin had ever doubted Sehun’s talents. It was when he’d seen the younger struggle during that one night where he’d watched him from some dark corner of the studio did he see someone who’d almost looked like a younger version of himself, back when he was still trying to pass auditions even though he’d failed the last two. So, he’d decided to intervene. And it’s now that they were both trainees, though under different companies, that he isn’t exactly sure anymore how to approach his childhood friend when it had been basically set that they’d be seeing each other more often now. _Hello, my real name is Kim Jongin and I wanted you to call me Kai to see if that would kickstart your memory_ or _I told you I was real, didn’t I?_ didn’t really seem to make the cut.

Perhaps they were destined for different paths, that though their fates were joined, they were never intertwined.

Jongin smiles thoughtfully at that. Maybe in another life, he would’ve made a good writer. As it stands, he was in a reality where his best friend had no memories of him and to further change the game, had kissed him even then, making Jongin even more confused as to where the two of them would continue on from there. He doesn’t really know anymore.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Jongin looks up, just in time for a pair of lips to crash into his. He blinks, unresponsive from the shock that Sehun is  _right there_ , mouth moving against his own, when he decides to throw everything to the wind, closing his eyes to savor the moment. It’s a chaste kiss, although Jongin is tempted to turn it into something more heated, to slip his tongue between the seam of Sehun’s lips when his hands squeeze almost possessively on the younger’s hips, and it’s when they break away that Jongin remembers what Sehun had called him.

“What are you taking about –?”

“You,” Sehun cuts in, eyes boring deeply into Jongin’s own. “Acting all mysterious. Couldn’t have told me your real name instead, could you?” He’s not really mad, Jongin realizes when he sees Sehun try to keep a smile at bay but failing spectacularly. But it’s the realization that Sehun knows his actual name isn’t Kai that has him reeling. Has he remembered? Or . . .

Jongin gulps down the thought that this had been an elaborate prank. That couldn’t be possible, especially when he himself had seen how Sehun had struggled _so, so much_ not three nights ago. That couldn’t be an act.  
“But I – I thought you had didn’t have memories of. . . I thought you had amnesia.” It’s at the mention of _that_ that Sehun’s eyes become thoughtful, his mouth set into a straight line, and Jongin thinks that yes, his conclusions had definitely been on the right track.

“I did. I guess that makes me an idiot as well,” Sehun says lightly, but Jongin could hear the slight hint of sadness in his voice. He doesn’t want to ask how Sehun had finally remembered him again, at least not now when everything seemed too raw and too fast, but it seems like the younger and he had been thinking along the same train of thought all along. “I guess,” Sehun continues, “those times when I blacked out every time you were there – they were the times when I tried to remember you, but I didn’t really have any memories yet after my head got messed up because of the – “

“Because of the accident.” Jongin finishes for him, and this time, it’s Sehun’s turn to look at him incredulously.

“How did you know?” Jongin smiles knowingly, standing up to his full height and then offering a hand to Sehun as he’d done countless times before.

“That’s a long story, and,” he pauses, “I think that’s for when we’re already well acquainted with each other.” Jongin hopes Sehun had understood that little joke he’s made, and when he’s greeted by a dazzling smile, he knows he did.

“Fair enough. Oh Sehun, pleasure to meet you.”

“Kim Jongin. Likewise.”

**Author's Note:**

> see what I did with that another-life-could’ve-been-a-writer thing they both experienced *wiggles brows* anyway, I planned for this to have a lighter tone but it wrote itself and went on to become a drama so there are scenes where the moods are suddenly light and then gloomy and then just . . . yeah. i hope the story was quite easy to understand. xD (and i hope you were able to understand that last joke thing they had)


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